.
THE STUDENTS JOURNAL.
PUBLISHED WEEKLY
Students Journal Pub. Go.
Frank H. Moore...Editor-in-Chief
Rollin E. Blackman...Local Editor
Arthur L. Corbin...Literary Editor
BUSINESS MANAGERS
CHAS. H. LEASE
WARREN EDWARDS
ASSOCIATES.
Jno. H. Henderson ... Literary
W. C. Atchison ... Local
Frank E. House ... Exchange
H. Hailer ... Theater
Jas. V. May ... Athletics
H. C. Rigge ... Snow Hall
Mayo Thomas ... Law School
The stock of the STUDENT'S JOURNAL company consists of non-transferable one dollar shares. Any student instructor or employee of the University may hold one and only one share.
This paper is on file at the editorial rooms of the University Review, 230 Fifth avenue. New York, where all college men are given a hearty welcome.
THE election of officers of the Student's JOURNAL will be held Tuesday May 15th.
The Farm and Fireides is making a vigorous protest against the action of those who are attempting to have the postage on second-class mail matter increased from the present one-cent rate to eight cents. The STUDENTS' JOURNAL very heartily agrees with the Farm and Fireides on this question. The passage of the proposed act would so greatly increase the cost of mailing newspapers that the STUDENTS' JOURNAL would have either to suspend publication or to abandon its method of serving subscribers through the mails.
The disagreeable mortal who goes about showing no consideration for the feelings or convenience of others, is to be found amon college students as well as in every other class of what are supposed to be civilized people. His actions, however, are those of a savage He goes about making the corners of the halls of the University buildings so dirty with tobacco and other things that we wonder if it will not be necessary to put up the familiar sign of the street car and the railroad waiting room, "Gentlemen will please not —————————” He goes into the library reading room and if an article in any of the newspapers please him, he cuts it out even though it be a paper that several hundred other students are awaiting an opportunity to read. He does many other things of the same nature, but these two have been brought to our attention during the past week and we therefore mention them.
Or late years the Senior Classes of the University have given as much thought and attention to the preparation of Class Day programs as to those of Commencement Day. The exercises have, as a consequence, been very interesting and entertaining. Another result, as the Senior Class Day Committee of 94 can testify, has been the establishment of a standard of excellence that is hard to maintain. The present committee, however, composed of very bright and witty members of the Senior class, has been hard at work endeavoring to prepare a program that will maintain this high standard and we are assured that they have been so successful that those who may be lead by experiences of former years to anticipate a pleasant entertainment on class day may be sure that they will have their expectations fully realized. The class will give a play of its own composition in which special attention will be paid to noteworthy University characters and events.
Some Peculiar English-
At the last meeting of the Language Conference Prof, Wilcox read, as an example of translation from German into English, a letter he had received from Leipzig advertising the sale of an eminent scholar's library. The following are some extracts from the letter:
"As a matter of course the philological journals are represented by absolutely complete copies. Besides there are large series and rows of the Academies of Berlin, Munich, Vienna, Gottingen, etc. The late unfortunate owner of these collections, who attained the age of 83, has for nearly 70 years brought together with indefatigable zeal all that has been published in the classical philological direction of important works. I wish to add that the library contains all the hand-copies of Prof. Souppe's works."
It is therefore not surprising that the collection in question has been called by a well-known philologist, a philologi-
al hand library that is unique or alone in its kind, a library that has grown together with the labor and the life of a scientific man and which is not to be had for hundred-thousands a second time in that completeness. In case you should intend to secure the collection for yourself or for your college, please oblige me with a brief telegraphic message to prevent the library being disposed of further in the meantime. A catalogue does not exist at the present moment; I hope however, that the same will be completed by this time and will be to your disposition for a short time. A catalogue of this excellent collection is regarded in my opinion as not necessary to have, besides the sending of it will require very much time, and the whole collection at all events shall be settled by December 10th, of this year. The forwarding will take place from Gottingen with a notary attesting that the collection comprises all of the works left by Professor Souppe. I am sir, etc. The Professor also read the following notice which was hung up in a railway carriage in Italy: "The throwing out of carriages of jugs, bottles, etc., thereby the servants of the company and passers-by may be endangered, is strictly for, bidden."
Essentials of Practice of Pharmacy by Lucius E. Sayre, Ph. G. Second Edition Revised. W. B. Saunders & Co., Philadelphia.
Prof. Sayre's Pharmacy Book.
THE University is now fairly well represented in the field of text books. The works of several of our professors are in use in various schools, and some of them are of such merit that they have successfully passed through the crucial first edition, and have appeared in the new garb of a second edition. Of this number is Professor Sayre's little manual, which is cataloged as No. 18 of Samurer's Question Compends. This series of works represents the labors of some of the best specialists in this country and it is no little honor to Prof. Sayre and to the University that he has been chosen to present the subject of Pharmacy in the series.
Other additions are: An outline of drug and plant analysis, pharmaceutical texture of inorganic chemicals, and a list of problems in allegation and specify gravity. Altogether the book is neatly and tastefully gotten up and is really a work of merit.
In looking over the new edition of this work, we notice a number of important improvements over the old edition. In the first place the book has been revised to conform to the new standard of pharmaceutical science, the Pharmacopoeia of 1893-94.
In this respect Prof. Sayre's book is one of the first in the field. Besides this revision a number of additions have been made. Prominent among these is a series of structural formulas of representative compounds.
SNOW HALL
A. O. Garrett is acting as assistant in the Chinch Bug Department.
Overtown will have a skeleton of fossil pecary mounted in a few days. Photographs of it will be made as soon as completed.
The Botany Department has received by exchange from Michigan University a fine collection of both fresh water anh salt water Algae.
A piano is placed in the gymnasium for the use of the ladies in the physical culture exercises.
A prize of a new pair of shoes was offered some time ago by Mr. Faxon for the first specimen of kangaroo mouse caught in this locality. This prize was won a few days ago by Mr. Eams.
"Trucker is spending a few days at his home in Wichita this week.
Prof. Dyche has received a collection of elk and deer heads from Olathe.
THE FOSSIL SNAKE.
The Capital's Bad Break.
Some weeks ago there appeared in the Topeka Capital a column article describing a monster fossil snake which had been found near Beloit, Kansas, and which was on exhibition in the State House. This article was copied by other papers and went the rounds of the State. Wednesday Dr. Williston was in Tepeka and took occasion to examine this wonderful snake. He saw at once that the specimen was nothing else than the body of a pine tree. The part on exhibition is about thirty-five feet long and contains the bottom of the trunk from which the roots start. This portion the Capital called the head of the snake. The Professor remarked that a temperance city like Topeka might be expected to have reporters who know the difference be tween a snake and a pine tree.
OUR STUDY WINDOW.
While riding on the cars the other day, I listened with much eagerness to a conversation somewhat as follows, between the conductor of the train and one of the passengers.
The Patient Farmer.
Said the conductor, looking out of the window at a field of wheat, yellow and blighted on account of the late frosts, but which only a few days before had given promise of yielding an abundant crop. "Well, I suppose we shall hear nothing from now on till the end of harvest, but our farmer friends complaining because the wheat straw is one thirty-sixth of an inch shorter than usual this year."
"Yes," replied the passenger, whose salary, like that of the conductor, did not depend in any direct way upon frosts, droughts and floods, "farmers aer the most complaining class in the world. If it is not one thing it is another. The facts of the case are there is no place on earth where it is as easy to make a living as on a farm."
Thus it appears to those who know nothing of the trials, the disappointments and the failures of the farmer, and of the western farmer in particular.
It will be the object of this paper to prove that farming, taking all things into consideration, requires as much and probably more patience on the part of him who follows it, than any other known vocation.
The question will early rise in the minds of those who do not happen to agree with me in regard to the unhappy lot of the farmer, that if farming is such a capricious occupation, why is it that such a large per cent of the globe to day is and always has been engaged in such an unprofitable business? This. I think, is the answer to the question. There is inherent in every one of us the desire to make money. Farming, before proved by personal experience to be quite the opposite, seems to present an unusually fine opportunity for the gratification of this desire. At a safe distance the occupation has a thousand allurements. How easily, thinks the city business man, contemplating the purchase of a farm, who heretofore with the aid of a hot bed and afterwards the hose has succeeded in growing one mess of peas, how easily I shall now make a living. What a delight to watch the growing crops. What a luxury to have all the crisp vegetables, all the fresh butter, eggs and milk one wants. And then next year I shall have saved enough to buy another farm—an other farm, this as the ambition which exercises complete control over the ordinary farmer and for the realization of which he works to death himself, his horses and his wife.
It is under the spell of such delusions that a man, before he scarcely realizes what he is doing, finds himself the owner of a farm, with everything except himself and his family, mortgaged for the remainder of the debt.
But the idyllic life, of which the deduced purchaser, has dreams of enjoyment. I fear will be found only in some Utopian scheme, or possibly in the preface to Cato's or Horace Greeley's "Manual on Farming." There is considerable of the veriest reality in the life of the farmer who toils from four o'clock in the morning until ten o'clock at night; who sells all the produce of the farm except enough potatoes, flour and bacon to hold soul and body together; who wears the coarsest of clothes; who never reads a newspaper; whose horses and whose family are too tired to get away, even on Sunday, from the scene of their continual drudgery.
That we may better understand the trials and vicissitudes a farmer has to pass through, let us briefly follow him as he plants and raises one year's crop. The proud possessor of one hundred and sixty acres of soil that can hold the most water in wet weather, and stand the least drought in dry weather, hopefully prepares his oats ground for sowing. At last the seed is carefully harrowed in. The wind begins to blow from the south west, and continues to blow, tornado-like, for three days, until the farmer grows alarmed lest the oats and the soil in which they are planted be completely blown away- Suddenly the wind subsides. It begins to rain, not to continue for forty days and nights, but for one-fourth that length of time at least, until the recently sown oats field presents a washed and drenched appearance. Then the sky clears; the sun comes out. But that night a cold wind blows out of the north and freezes up for a week to come all the poetic little books we read about, while the farmer silently but not complainingly walks out to his oats field, scratches about in the soil and finds the germs of the seeds killed on ac
count of frosts and wet weather.
But the typical farmer never allows himself to be discouraged by trifles. He merely buys more seed, sows more oats, and begins ploughing for corn. After the ground has been ploughed, harrowed and rained upon long enough to make it unfit for planting as it was before the sod was ever turned, a half dozen clay sunbeams which find their way to the earth during the last week in May encourage the farmer to put on his overcourt and begin corn planting. With the assistance of a twelve-year-old boy, who, by the way, is expected to do a man's work, the farmer succeeds in getting his corn laid by, by the Fourth of July. On the day of the celebration the boy is given twenty-five cents and told to go to town and get all the fire-crackers, ice cream and red lemonade he wants, but not to spend any of his money foolishly. The farmer himself, who probably has not taken time to think of the occasion even, or of the celebration, stays at home and fixes fence.
Close upon the cultivation of the corn comes the harvesting of the oats and wheat, when the farmer has to hustle in order to get both properly taken care of. In spite of heavy dews and rains the last sheaf of wheat is finally in the shock, the last stock of oats topped out, and the farmer says to himself "let it rain."
But the weather is one thing that cannot be depended upon doing what it is expected todo and should do. It no longer rains, because there is no harvesting to interrupt. The hot, dry winds of August begin to blow. The fresh, healthy green color of the growing corn disappears. Every day the broad bats curl up and grow flabby. At night instead of the rippling music that comes from the gently rustling corn-field to lull the tired farmer to rest, there comes the harsher grating of parched corn blades, and with it the thought that only a few days longer can vegetation withstand such a terrible drought. But in sight of the destruction that is hourly going on about him the farmer accepts his fate, for fate it is, calmly.
When the time comes for selling his produce it is as might be expected. The market price of that which he has is low, and of that which he has not is high. And what has he left after he has disposed of his all? What has he to show for his hard work, his privations and his sacrifices? Little more than the satisfaction of having done one's best, and the remarkable determination to try farming another year.
In the meantime let us see what pleasures, aside from hard work, the farmer and his family have received. They have had ample opportunity to commune with Nature, but people whose minds must be so preoccupied with the thoughts of obtaining the bare necessities of life are little inclined to commune with Nature. That which has probably given the overworked wife the most pleasure is a new calico dress for herself and a pink sunbonnet for her baby. The younger children have had the advantages of a whole term of school, while the older ones have gone on bad days when there was nothing else for them to do.
But let us add no further details to a picture too sad to look upon. We have already explained how it happens that a man ever goes into the farming business, but it now remains to account for the fact that he follows for a second yeara business where so much depends upon circumstance for which he is not responsible, and conclude from the fact that he does follow such a business for the second year, that the farmer is the most patient creature on earth.
It was observed that when the farmer had disposed of his hard worked-for produce he had on hand as capital for the next year the satisfaction of knowing that failure was due to no management of his, and the unaccountable determination to try the experiment another year. Indeed these are the two forces which keep the farmer on his farm. The merchant if he fail, can in most cases look back and see where failure was due to some misjudgment on his part. The farmer, on the other hand, cannot blame himself, any other man, or even a bad political administration directly, for not having grown a fielddf corn that would average seventy-dive bushels to the acre. The only thing in the world he could blame would be the weather, and a farmer was never heard to give expression to such feeling.
That spirit of determination—the other binding force—we admit is in most cases a man's false exterior. It is something he assumes with which to deceive his friends and console himself. If we analyze this feeling of determination we find it to be the result of the following peculiar circumstan-
stances, for there never was a man yet who would farm for two consecutive years if he could. anything else that would better his condition. When he bought the farm, he paid down at least five hundred dollars, and if he quits the business at the end of the first year he simply loses that amount. But even if the five hundred dollars seemed of little importance to him, what else could he do? He has no education, no trade, nothing that could earn a living for him among a thousand competitors in the city. So he stays where he is and pretends to enjoy farming, never for one moment confessing to anyone but himself that there is anything else he would rather be doing.
Can there be any other spirit than that of patience or resignation which underlies all this? Is there any other profession excepting gambling where so much seems to depend upon chance? The frequenter of the Board of Trade building grows prematurely old, and is forced to retire from business at the end of three years so severe is the strain upon him. But the farmer who is just as much the plaything of chance wearily plods along year after year, never complaining, but living upon the hope that maybe next year crops will be better.
For a number of weeks the Senior Class Day committee has been hard at work on a class day entertainment which they fondly hope will prove as interesting as any entertainments of the kind that have been given by former University graduating classes. They think that it will equal in excellence even the totem pole, and will be especially appreciated by fellow students. We are forbidden at present to give any more definite information, but were told to say something in a vague sort of a way so as to excite curiosity without really telling anything.
C. S. B.
Senior Class Day.
Later-The class day entertainment will be a play written by the seniors. The play is a representation of university life and there are numerous personal references that will surely be appreciated by the students.
Spring Styles
Soft and Stiff
HATS,
are on display
by
W. Bromelsick,
THE HATTER.
FOR
New Goods,
FOR
New Styles.
IN
Fine Shoes,
Oxfords,
OR
SLIPPERS.
GO TO
HUME'S,
829 MASS. ST.
PRICES RIGHT.
It's as Cheap
To get your clothes made to order—to have them fit well, look well, wear well,—as it is to get the ordinary ill-fitting, ready-made. We sell
SUITS AT $20
That are cut and tailored as well as those of the highest priced tailors in Kansas City. If you want perfect satisfaction in your clothing come to us as we guarantee it.
ROYAL TAILORS,
S. W. Cor. 7th and Main St.
Kansas City, Mo.
ROYAL TAILORS.
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